The Centre would soon come out with supplementary guidelines for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna —Urban to enable affordable housing in partnership with the private sector, minister of housing and urban poverty alleviation Venkaiah Naidu said on Monday.

The Centre would soon come out with supplementary guidelines for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna —Urban to enable affordable housing in partnership with the private sector, minister of housing and urban poverty alleviation Venkaiah Naidu said on Monday. (PTI)

The Centre would soon come out with supplementary guidelines for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna —Urban to enable affordable housing in partnership with the private sector, minister of housing and urban poverty alleviation Venkaiah Naidu said on Monday. This model will involve private builders entering into a partnership with the government to construct affordable housing, he added. Earlier this year, Naidu had stated that there was poor response from private builders for the affordable housing schemes in almost all states. The government had granted infrastructure status to the segment in the Union Budget 2017. In April, the Prime Minister’s office had called a meeting to review the government’s affordable housing programme as it targets to achieve ‘Housing for All’ by 2022.

Realtors’ body Credai and Naredco were also called to understand the problems faced by the developers in launching affordable housing projects. The NDA government has approved construction of 20,25,573 houses under PMAY—Urban in three years (2014-15) compared to 12,40,904 houses by UPA government during 2004-2014. “The housing sector will get a fillip in the coming days with the Real Estate Regulation (and development) Act,” Naidu said.

The minister further said he has requested states to notify the rules soon and immediately establish a regulatory authority and the appellate tribunal in order to ensure timely implementation of the Act. “We are 24*7 reminding the states about the implementation of the act. We are reviewing it…RERA will be a game changer,” he said.The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, was notified by the ministry of housing, urban development and poverty alleviation on May 1 last year. All states were required to notify real estate rules, including the general rules and the agreement for sale rules, and establish the real estate regulatory authorities and the appellate tribunals by April 30, 2017, as the Act would have commenced its full operation from May 1.

Last month, the government had also notified the remaining 32 sections of RERA which relate to registration of ongoing projects that have not received completion certificate, registration of property agents, and penalties for non-compliance. It has enforced the other 59 sections of the Act since May last year. All the real estate projects and property agents have to be registered with regulatory authorities by July 31.

Pune to herald municipal bonds
Pune will be the first city to raise funds through municipal bonds. “Pune will get listed on BSE on June 22,” Naidu said. The Pune Municipal Corporation has already initiated the process for a bond offering of Rs 2,300 crore, in what could be the country’s largest municipal bond issue and the first one after a gap of around two decades.

More smart cities
The government will announce the next batch of smart cities by the end of this month, Naidu said. Launched on June 25, 2015, cities under the Smart City Mission will be developed to have basic infrastructure such as assured water and power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, IT connectivity, e-governance and citizen participation. A total number of 100 smart cities have been distributed among the states and the Union Territories.With a per city allocation of Rs 100 crore for each of the five years of the mission period, the Central assistance to the mission is around Rs 50,000 crore.“About 800 projects worth Rs 34,000 crore are in various stages of implementation… Investment of Rs 1,34,000 crore has been approved in 60 selected smart cities,” he added.